


Remnants

by levitatethis



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: hardtime100, M/M, Prompt Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-23
Updated: 2010-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby is a haunted man</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remnants

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hardtime100 Prompt Challenge #58: Nightmare on Oz Street 2010

_“Some stories you carry around in your heart. Others live in the throat, in the skull, in the fangs — all worthy places, too.”_   
**-Natalia Antonova**

  
Toby regards life as a series of forks in the road, new ones splitting off, this way and that, stretching outward in some haphazard, but no doubt meticulous, fashion.

Good, bad, each one is the undeniable consequence of moving two steps forward, left or right, lather, rinse, repeat. There’s no such thing as a pious life, love is not the only flipside to hate. No, they’re brothers in arms; Siamese twins, blood relatives always looking to collect.

Black and white is for pencil pushers who never risk geting their hands dirty but assuage their conscience all the same by declaring rules and regulations far removed from the ugly reality. It’s one thing to write the template for Oz, it’s quite another to live within it.

Anger feeds the need to survive. Desire fuels that which is best left unsaid. Toby considered death, still does on occasion, but decides on the alternative. Vern “Fuckface” Schillinger used and abused him for some Machiavellian mischief of his own and still refuses to relinquish the sordid claim he’s made on Toby’s life, the very one that refuses to stick. Chris “Two Face” Keller came to finish the job and in the process a cosmic sucker punch hit him and Toby in the guts.

In the simplest of terms, Toby lives in the in between.

 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

He’s a haunted man.

Ghosts, uninvited yet handcuffed and bound nonetheless, whisper sweet nothings in his dreams. There’s no escape, no matter how much he tries to exorcise them, so he’s learned to stand them. Twisted bodies, contorted faces, lost souls—they’re all breadcrumbs trailing him the further he descends into the darkening forest. Looking back from where he came offers only a momentary pause, a second to catch his breath.

Kathy’s ghost is the oldest. It— _she_ —judges him with sad eyes and a grim smile that has no place on a face so young. She is the innocent bathed in blood, the unintentional sacrifice giving up one life for another, and she trickles a cold sweat over his body.

Genevieve’s ghost is detached but sweet. She crushes a weight of expectation almost unbearable to carry in the coy angling of her head and hopeful doe eyes that still reflect a world of make believe fairytales. She makes his head pound.

Metzger unleashes nothing but calm over Toby which, in itself, _should_ be disturbing but isn’t. Retribution is a suit Toby likes to wear and the dead CO fits just right. They have staring contests, exchange silent insults in a cerebral wonderland and then go their separate ways.

Andrew makes him feel empty. The void isn’t one bereft of feelings but there’s an ache and an uncertainty that coils in Toby’s stomach. He sees the pathetic need of the young man, desperation still dripping off lanky limbs and Toby falls backwards into a shallow lake of poisoned regret.

Gary is the most painful ghost. Toby has rarely felt the word wretched appropriate, but it’s the only one that comes remotely close to encapsulating the devastation he feels. There are no words and no sacrifices that can be made to balance the scales. Toby’s reduced to halted thoughts and guttural sobs. Gary, so innocent, beautiful and perfect, leaves a longing smile where a grin should be. He drifts heavy nostalgia around Toby’s shoulders and leans his small head against his father’s chest, pounding Toby’s heart over the loss that will never be filled.

Hank is the mistake nagging from the corners of the pod. He’s the listless, resigned casualty of war. Toby has no clue if his vision of Schillinger’s oldest son is close to whom the real man was, but he unfolds as an amalgamation of Andrew and Vern, with a hint of ruthlessness woven into the seams. Strangely, Hank is the one who sits next to Toby, both of them with their shoulders hunched as they quietly lament the fucked up meaning of life.

Harrison is the default. He’s the death by proxy, the mission statement, the lesson. He’s the encouraging yet worried extension of “the path to Hell is paved with good intentions,” and the protective presence Toby curls into, the one that strokes his hair and tells him lies about life getting better.

Vern is the goddamn boogeyman. He scares Toby but doesn’t frighten him. He is dark shadows and a murderer’s glint always threatening to eat Toby up in his nightmares. He’s the inescapable nothingness consuming the fabric of Toby’s pulled tight existence. More often than not Toby beats him back, kills him again and again (with more verve and intent than the reality of a “prop” shank afforded) remembering that in the grand scheme of things Vern is decomposing six feet under, exactly where he belongs.

Chris is the most brutal haunting. He’s Toby’s twisted conscience always ready to come out and play. One part love, one part hate—but, god, it’s mostly love—he pins Toby in a stranglehold with phantom hands squeezing pale skin purple, pressing a ready and willing cock hard against his hips. He whispers harsh truths and poetic confessions, glares angry disappointment, smirks lustful _I told you so’s_ , lays himself overtop Toby like a blanket he can’t crawl out from under no matter how much he struggles in a desperate need for breath.

Toby wants to rip Chris limb-from-limb and stagger, dripping in blood, around the proffered carcass. He wants to crawl into Chris and wear him like armor, repeating _“iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou,”_ because he’s never felt like this and even if Chris is gone, he’ll never truly be _gone_.

Freedom, it seems, is a relative term.

Said, before the end got its hooks into him, could put it in philosophical terms that made Toby search deep within and see the universe on the head of a pin. Said challenged the status quo and rocked Toby to his core.

Freedom.

Toby doesn’t know if it’s ever really applied.  
 

  
********** ********** ********** ********** **********

His father once told him, “There are some places a man leaves a mark on and others that leave a mark on him.”

Toby used to think it was an either-or possibility.

 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

The first time he killed Chris it was intentional.

It was a lesson wrapped up in a shank. It was revenge, plain and simple, that left Chris gasping bloodied breaths on his way to the infirmary. It was expected and necessary payback that leveled the playing field. To be fair, Chris didn’t die (technically speaking), but Toby’s intent to harm hit the bullseye.

He probably wouldn’t have cried if Chris had kicked the bucket back then (Toby had already shed his own tears for six weeks when he was laid up in the hospital with nothing to do but think about foolishly falling for the con of love and the sweetness of revenge), but he would have felt the loss all the same. Of course it would have faded away over time like a bad memory that’s run its course.

The second time Toby killed Chris it was an accident.

The anger was the same, born of heartbreak and exasperated frustration. Saturating his being, drowning his veins, it ripped somber solace through his body and soul. An act of urgency, to feel himself momentarily free, left the spinning top spiraling out of control. It was a gesture of goodbye, a plea to be let go, to be loved so much that release was the only answer. It was laying the cards out on the table and seeing the jagged future turning a broken record tune, over and over.

And in the few seconds after the desperate kiss and suicide jump, while Chris dropped away, the panic Toby felt, the pang of emptiness for what had seared his soul and would be forever lost, nearly nudged him over the edge too—because what would life be without Chris besides shadow of a shadow?

In life Chris had exploded his world open, blown it to pieces and smiled at the damage. He was never one to shy away from the truth. To others he may plead the fifth on the matter, but with Toby it was disjointed honesty, baptism by fire and certainly no pretty bows to dress it up nice.

 _“…god…Toby, I…need you so much…I can’t…you’re part of me…you’re fucking inside of me…”_

An utterance past midnight. Chris had held him tight (many nights before that other return to Oz, before a grieving induced betrayal reared its ugly head) and choked soft words against his shoulder. Toby had held him close and stroked the back of his neck, letting the unspoken, _I love you_ , beat soundly between them.

Toby couldn’t quite say the words and risk jinxing everything. Not yet. Not after he had worked so hard to make sure everyone in Oz knew what he was capable of, knew the name Tobias Beecher and didn’t laugh at its implications but grabbed their nuts and took a step back. He promised to never let his guard down especially after getting burned by the very same man wrapped around him. Yet just as he broke through Oz’s walls, Chris did the same to him.

Con. Love. Assault. Love. Betrayal. Love. Blood. Love. Carnage. Love. Death. Love.

That which doesn’t destroy makes him stronger.

It has to.

 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

His parole is shot and now there’s no Chris to warm the lonely nights or eyefuck across the quad. Oz is a somewhat distant memory, closed down for decontamination purposes (because Chris was always about actions speaking louder than words), and it turns out one prison is just like the rest. Somewhere along the way, however, Toby developed clout, the exception to the privileged rule, and few inmates bother to mess with him.

He floats in the middle and just below the fray. He keeps his head down and eyes alert. He reads, watches tv, works out and helps Sister Pete in her makeshift office. He shoots the shit with O’Reily in the cafeteria, the two of them watching each other’s backs by default and past history. He looks forward to visits from Harry and Holly (when she’s not too pissed to give him the time of day) and Angus trying his best not to judge (and only failing half the time).

He never falls asleep right away.

At night Toby stares into the darkness, vaguely hypnotized by O’Reily’s snoring from the top bunk, and lets his mind lay out a million questions with no discernable answers. Right before he drifts off, into contented rest or fitful sleep, it’s the same final wondering—

The glimmer of a happy smile beneath a warm sun, Chris stretched out in the grass next to him, running his fingers lightly along Toby’s wrist, and the sounds of the kids in the background—

Fingernails piercing his skin, bloodshot eyes burning holes through him; Chris grimacing while flames run up the sides of his body, all the while dragging Toby into the burning pit—

The agony and the ecstasy.

Within Toby is a story far beyond any metaphorical boundaries; one he has kicked and cajoled, pushing forward and twisting about. The wounds run deeper than an abstract character sitting on a page. They’re not so easy to dismiss and ignore, there’s no turning a blind eye. These scars itch and burn, tickle phantom touches.

One fact remains – the in between is not off limits and it’s far from a no man’s land, a desolate landscape or the false offer of a safe place. It’s a convoluted labyrinth littered with bodies. He’s as much a marked man as anyone else.

And he’s got the scars to prove it.


End file.
